The 29th annual Ride The Rockies tour departed Steamboat Springs on Wednesday morning after a two-night stay, which was designed to offer its 2,000 registered cyclists a chance to recover from a taxing first two days.

The Day 4 route Wednesday was familiar to those riders who opted Day 3 to take the “false recovery ride,” which was a 54-mile loop starting and ending in Steamboat Springs. (The first two days were 89 and 95 miles, respectively.) The first 20 miles on Day 3 and Day 4 were identical.

The odometer reading after Day 2 of Ride The Rockies on Monday: 103.32 miles. (Bryan Boyle, The Denver Post)

In the nine-plus years since I’ve picked up cycling, I had never ridden 100 miles in a single day. Been close. But never once tried. Turns out, it’s something of a badge within the cycling community: the century ride.

Despite seven-plus tours with Ride The Rockies and countless training runs, including climbs of Poncha Pass and Cottonwood Pass, I’d never once reached triple digits.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Dan Kuper might be the most popular figure on Ride The Rockies.

Each morning, a long line forms for an audience with this legend of the weeklong cycling tour. It hungers for his signature — signature dish, that is.

The pancake. Plural. All-you-can-eat plural.

Since the 2009 Ride The Rockies, “Danny Flapjacks” Kuper (a.k.a. “Dan the Pancake Man”) and his Flippin’ Flapjacks family have fed the masses with mass production on a homemade grill at wrist-snapping speed.

All you can eat. With sausage links, butter and syrup. Five bucks.

Suffice it to say, Flippin’ Flapjacks sell like hotcakes. This year marks their sixth RTR.

When you meet a triple-amputee riding up Boulder Canyon two hours into your first day of Ride The Rockies, your on-bike challenges feel smaller.

Tim Brown, the 30-year-old former Marine, is pushing himself across Ride The Rockies’ six-day, 471-mile route with his left arm and his right shoulder. Regarding the Boulder Canyon climb, “Hills are actually my strong point,” Brown said. “I’m so light weight.”

(Joe Murphy, The Denver Post)

His steed is a custom bike that took nine months to put together. Brown, who lives in Rockville, Maryland, started bicycling February 2012. Brown was injured (“blown up,” he said) on his third deployment in Afghanistan, in February 2011.

He picked up bicycling as a means of exercise. Swimming wasn’t an option, he said.

“It’s tough, but it’s a great way to deal with stress,” Brown said. That’s not to mention the physical benefits: “You get in shape, and chicks like you more when you’re in shape.”

He’s with two other riders on this trip, all Ride The Rockies first-timers.

Fast forward to day three, a ride looping to the west of Steamboat Springs. It’s the shortest day yet of the ride at 54 miles and 3,831′ of elevation gain.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — After the first two days averaged 92 miles of distance and 7,000 feet of elevation gain, the 29th annual Ride The Rockies tour rolled its 2,000 cyclists into Steamboat Springs on Monday for both respite and reward.

Respite came Tuesday with the option to ride what was billed by tour officials as a “false recovery ride.” Reward came in the form of a two-night stay in Ski Town, U.S.A., allowing cyclists a chance at not doing a few things: not waking at dawn, not striking tents, not packing bags and not riding all sunlit hours.

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS – Temperatures hovering in the upper 20s at Winter Park early Monday morning served as a chilling reminder to Ride The Rockies cyclists of the blizzard at Berthoud Pass the previous day that brought Day 1 of the 29th annual cycling tour in Colorado to a premature end for many of the 2,000 registered cyclists. However, as atypical as Day 1 shook out, Day 2 to Steamboat Springs over two mountain passes across 95 miles proved quintessential RTR.

Day 2 of Ride The Rockies on Monday took cyclists 95 miles from Winter Park to Steamboat Springs. (Joe Murphy, The Denver Post)

Berthoud Pass on June 9, 2014, during Ride the Rockies 2014. (Greg Olson, Special to The Denver Post)

The evening in Winter Park was to quote John Steinbeck. “I’ve lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.” You had better have loved weather while in Winter Park. We were one of the few people who stopped by the party as it started to rain, sleet and snow. Winter Park did a great job as they set out lawn chairs for people to watch live music and enjoy the Taste of Winter Park. Maybe if we lived in Seattle or Oregon we might be OK with cold and wet conditions after a day of climbing 10,000 feet. Many of us at the event didn’t realize hundreds of people were stuck on Berthoud Pass waiting for buses to bring them down as the Colorado State Patrol shut down the descent due to snow and fog. We are thankful for the many levels of support we have on this ride.

Snow rips at the summit of Berthoud Pass at the 75th mile of Day 1 during Ride The Rockies on Sunday. (Joe Murphy, The Denver Post)

WINTER PARK — Since this year’s Ride The Rockies route was announced in February, the first day of the 29th annual cycling tour promised to be grueling between its 10,000 feet of climbing 89 miles of distance. In the week leading up to the tour, which started in Boulder, RTR tour director Chandler Smith went so far as the call Day 1 “one of the toughest days” in tour history.

Assuming fair weather, that is.

Freezing rain and snow pepper cyclists Sunday as they climb Berthoud Pass on Day 1 of Ride The Rockies. At the summit, cyclists were prohibited from descending the pass due to fog; the route stopped there at the 75th mile. (Bryan Boyle, The Denver Post)

But on a Sunday that saw Mother Nature play all her cards, 2,000 cyclists dealt with morning sun at the 20th mile in Nederland; rain, hail and lightning in the late morning between Central City and Idaho Springs; freezing rain, headwinds and snow (snow!) midafternoon during the day’s final climb of Berthoud Pass. And then the ace in the hole: fog. FOG at the Berthoud Pass summit that led tour officials to end the route there at the 75th mile.

In 2012 I asked Bryan Boyle if he was interested in running the Chicago Marathon — two weeks later he asked if I was interested in Ride the Rockies. I got a road bike, got on the tour, and have yet to regret it. This will be my second RTR.